OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 for eComStation and OS/2 Release Notes

Welcome to the GA version of OpenOffice.org 2.0 for eComStation and OS/2.

This release is the fifth publicly available version of this office suite.

Features

• Support for XWP/eWPS sliding menu hilite.

• Support for clipboard bitmap formats and unicode text.

• Support for mouse wheel.

• FT2: this release supports the FreeType2 font engine for better text rendering.

• QUICKSTART: quickstart has been implemented for OpenOffice.org for eComStation and OS/2. Using Quickstart improves startuptimes dramatically.

• NLS: multiple NLS versions can be installed, you can change the language with: Tools -> Options -> Language settings -> User Interface

• Base module supports dBase, MySQL and ODBC databases (ODBC requires unixodbc 011)

Installation

Pre-installation notes:

• WarpIn 1.0.12 or higher is required.You can download the latest WarpIn package from http://warpin.netlabs.org

• UniClip is required to complete installation.

• kLIBC 0.6.2 is required to complete installation.

• Innotek Font Engine is required to run OpenOffice.org 2.0 for eComStation and OS/2. This is installed by default on all versions of eComStation.

WarpIn version 1.0.15, UniClip 0.2.2 and kLIBC 0.6.2 can also be downloaded from the OpenOffice.org download directory.

Installing OpenOffice.org

If your system meets the above requirements, you can begin the installation of OpenOffice.org by doube clicking on the base WPI file (OOo204-base.wpi), it will automatically find the binaries and NLS WPI files.

At least one NLS WPI file is required for proper installation. (for example Ooo204-en.wpi)

After you finished making your selection, click on "Next" to begin the installation.

Please note, approximately 300 MB of drivespace is required to install this product. Approximately 40 MB of additional drivespace is required for each language required. Time required to complete the installation is determined by the performance and configuration of your system.

Installation notes:

• This installation will not overwrite existing installations.

• The installation target volume must support long filenames.

• Installation takes around 300 MB of drivespace, every installed language requires around 40 MB of additional drivespace.

• This build is based on the 2.0.4 sourcecode of OpenOffice.org.

A suggestion which may improve rendering of the GUI font would be to install the Workplace Sans True Type font (see note below). Installing the Workplace Sans font will also visualize the numbering for the vertical ruler as the WarpSans font cannot be rotated.

Note: you can download the Workplace Sans font from the following website:

Quickstart

Quickstart has been implemented eComStation and OS/2; when enabled in OOo option dialogs, a shadow of your quickstart WPS icon object will be created in the startup folder.

Currently OOo cannot be unloaded, you need to 'kill' the open instance.

You can customize the Quickstart feature and decide which modules to preload at system startup. Open the Quickstart object properties and change the parameters field with:

-writer to preload Writer module

-calc to preload Calc module

-draw to preload Draw module

-math to preload Math module

-base to preload Base module

-impress to preload Impress module

You can mix above settings to match your personal preferences. Without above options, only the OOo core program will be loaded.

Quickstart performance improvement

The chart to the left right shows the difference in startuptime of OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 between the Quickstart enabled and disabled and shows the target filesystem. As it shows, enabling Quickstart allows for very decent starttimes, even on an HPFS formatted volume.

The testsystem is a T40p laptop, with a 1.6 GHz Pentium M CPU, 1 GB of memory and a 7200 rpm 100 GB harddisk. The JFS volume has a cache of 64 MB.

Using Quickstart allows for much faster starttimes of the OpenOffice.org applications. It does however take some time to process when the system boots. Since this feature is started from the Startup folder, it will begin to load when the desktop is visible (and active). This will take around 30 seconds. The memory consumption of the Quickstart feature is around 50 MB.

Installation finished

The template subfolder contains a number of templates that can be used to create OpenOffice.org documents. Use drag & drop to create a document from one of the templates.

To uninstall

Before installation, it is recommended that users uninstall any previous version of OpenOffice.org 2.x (OpenOffice.org 1.x is unaffected!):

• use WarpIn to uninstall the package, remove remaining database entries manually (see screenshot)

• afterwards clean out the remaining directory entirely (if found)

• remove (or rename) %home%\OpenOffice.org2 (which will wipe your previous settings)

WarpIn is unable to completely remove the old OpenOffice.org installation. To remove it competely, select 'remove database entry' and manually delete the old installation directory.

Known issues

• Printing of unicode text could fail, this is an ft2lib issue which is being analyzed investigation.

• OpenOffice.org will load into high memory, this causes it to fail on some systems. If this happens, OpenOffice.org will generate a popup message which references the failing DLL.

  It may help to set the VIRTUALADDRESSLIMIT to 1536 or 1024 in the config.sys. With recent kernels it is possible to mark dynamic libraries for high memory loading (get above512 from Hobbes). Since this kernelfeature is not entirely stable, it cannot be applied to the base code, but testers have found it works in most situations (be aware: you can trap your system when killing OOo).

  Another helpful hint is to use the QuickStart feature described above, this will 'preload' parts of OpenOffice into memory, which may increase the succesrate of loading OpenOffice.

• Font rendering: Since rendering is done directly with Unicode fonts, it may happen that some older fonts are not anti-aliased; this means that your font does not support Unicode charmaps and needs to be upgraded.

• Java not supported.

• Mozilla not supported.

• E-mail related settings are not supported.

• Play of sounds is not working.

• Macro security not working (req. java).

• Digital signatures not working (req. java)

• Base module does not support hsqldb (req. java).

• Some wizards are not supported, because they require java. (Menu option will fail silently).

Planned Enhancements

These fixes and enhancements will be delivered to all customers with an active Support Agreement:

• WPS file class: this class will enhance the file details page, showing the document properties.

• Printing: printing can be enabled by object file icon drag & drop over printer object, from WPS print menu, with drag & drop from OpenOffice.org window to the printer object.

• eComStation or OS/2 look & feel.

• Drag & drop from WPS objects to OO window to allow opening new files, inserting new files, linking existing files.

• NLS language selection for UI using program object properties or by drag & drop of the locale object.

• Java enablement of OpenOffice.org allows scripts and wizards to function properly.

• Update of the codebase to the latest available level.

User Support

For help with the OpenOffice.org 2.0 office suite, take a look at the archives to find questions already answered on the users@openoffice.org mailing list at http://www.openoffice.org/mail_list.html

Alternatively, you can send in your questions to users@openoffice.org.

Remember to subscribe to the list to get an email response.

Also check the FAQ section at http://user-faq.openoffice.org/

Support specific to the eComStation and OS/2 version can be obtained

through the ticketing system at: http://www.ecomstation.com/support/ooo2/

If you find any bugs, issues, or have other remarks, please provide as many details as possible and attach the soffice.log file created at every OpenOffice.org crash: this file is located into your OpenOffice.org.2.0\program\ directory.

More information

More information on OpenOffice.org can be found at:

Information on the eComStation and OS/2 version can be found at:

© 2005-2007 Serenity Systems International